winter afternoon, this time in 2010, Marta Rojas returned to Beijing and revealed the origins and singular argument luggage, a fictional story, set in the historical context of the trafficking of Chinese coolies and brought to America " contract "under conditions of semi-slavery. The book provides further evidence of the Chinese component, the third most significant Cuban nation.
The title is part of a string of symbols which employs Rojas. The author describes the "bulky baggage" of Nicolas Tanco Armero, main character in the novel: "... woven reeds and fibers, decorated in strong dyes that reproduce riverbeds, mountains, plants, birds on branches, village pond goldfish lotus and fruits in bowls of white jade. " Tanco luggage is perhaps more symbolic appeal to the argument of the novel: the trafficking of Chinese coolies, yellow-skinned humans, flexible body but not in mind, with a strong culture, cheated and uprooted of their environment.
What are the actual historical circumstances that serve as backdrop for the yellow luggage?
In the first half of the nineteenth century, Cuba was plunged into economic contradictions. Despite the abolition of the slave trade, the sugar industry demanded more slave labor. It was an extremely difficult situation. With the development of the industrial revolution and technological advances, England struggled against clandestine trade in slaves, with the aim of promoting the development of capitalism. The need paid labor force was evident. This situation influenced the overseas colonies struggled to develop and promote its domestic market. England stimulated recruitment of Asians as a palliative and thus began the yellow is the New World in 1842, Cuba and arrived in 1847.
How do I insert the characters in this context?
Nicolas Tanco Armero, merchant importer, with offices in London, New York and Hong Kong, representing the class that was engaged in the importation of coolies. In his role as facilitator of the shipment of coolies to the Chincha Islands, Peru, and Cuba. Tanco unfolds in patterns of deceit, simulations, bribes, pettiness, is associated with yellow.
Ni Fan Tanco begins to serve, where the trader was in Macao. He was a servant of birth. He had grown up around the atmosphere of hierarchies and intrigues of the Imperial Palace, educated in the Confucian precepts. Precisely with the wisdom and patience inherent in their culture, begins to live a new life, completely unknown.
Tanco interactions and provide evidence Ni Fan intercultural mix of stocks and contradictions ...
course, mixed with the black component. The Chinese coolie was a slave, free man-like 'hired'. And importers and Tanco, a modern version for that time of the slave trade. With this indispensable collection Brunilda represent black. It is more rebellious concubine Don Esteban, in my novel's Harem Oviedo, who fled. Checked In yellow, Brunilda is an arena and this time put in as Maroon healer. Around it, there is water instead of fire. Another coincidence connected with eroticism.
yellow luggage does not ignore the opium trade, is associated with Asian coolies. How do you approach this phenomenon in the novel?
was a fulfillment partner. Opium was one of the most ingrained habits in ancient China, and together with the export of coolies was a lucrative business. Opium was a guaranteed market in the California gold miners and the business, used as a subterfuge for the Chinese is also reflected in the novel.
What narrative possibilities offered inclusion of this historical reality?
Above all, blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality.
Any sort of magical realism?
Yes, hallucinatory vision of the character offers new approaches and readings. Enrich the speech, gives different shades, evocations that would not be justified without the opium.
yellow luggage is a recreation of a historical context from a fictional story. How does being faithful to the time and build believable characters and situations without Manichaeism?
After that conversation with Pino Santos, my project was on hold due to my work as a war correspondent in Vietnam. Passed after years of searching, research, and simultaneously work for my other novels. I spent a year reading Confucius. Its precepts I provided moral understand more about the Chinese and building a Fan Ni, my most beloved character in the novel.
conversation with Flora Fong, a result of the Chinese-Cuban mestizaje, I imagined the protagonist's speech cadence. She made me see the wonder of the strokes of Chinese characters. This novel is perhaps the most imaginative of all I have written. Look, Daniel García Santos, the editor, define my purpose here very well when he wrote on the back that dream and reality are indistinguishable . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The seedlings of the narrator, at times omniscient as God Almighty, aimed at other times, characters' inner voice, and resources such as the inclusion of Confucian maxims, fragments of memories of Tanco, poems of the Tang Dynasty, are an excellent approximation to the share of "Chinese box", as another of the symbols novel structural.
With hilarity, from the colloquial, with attractive didacticism, Martha Rojas recreates scenarios, historical contexts, insert characters, evokes nineteenth-century China, and describes the yellow race is and how it was.
Sometimes I think that Fan is not one of those who daily encounter on the subway or in a mall in Beijing, and in my daily life on many occasions I am in the position of "cultural clash" of Tancredi and his servant. Human conflicts are the same, only confined to various historical situations, the author urges us throughout his work.
yellow luggage us to the crystallization of the Cuban, a process that is a mix of Creole, the black, the Chinese, not to mention the approaches on the English and English components Marta Rojas gave in his earlier novels .
met Marta Rojas's work when he was a teenager and got my hands on a copy of The Cave of the dead, where she recreated events after the assault on the Moncada barracks and the whole history of the town of Siboney, Santiago de Cuba, where he spent part of my childhood. So I was surprised how the woman told a series of historical events and dialogues used, put into the mouths of the protagonists.
rediscovered the cave ... when I reread it while researching the history of radio from Santiago, and the book gave me many clues on various stations, including CMKR .
One afternoon in Beijing, I was, microphone in hand, interviewing women that went beyond "the Moncada journalist, war correspondent in Vietnam, novelist, teacher interview at the University of Havana ... evaded the rush, talk, laugh, was patient with changes in battery for my tape recorder and brought that" touch of Cuba "that was missing from the winter of this great capital.
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